That’s a very good question. I had to think about my answer for a few days. I wish academic librarian teacher training was emphasized more in my MLIS program. My understanding of college course dynamics was formed through a combination of my undergraduate experience, teaching high school students and my interactions with faculty and students primarily through library instruction and reference contexts. I don’t think my understanding was completely off, but some actual training would have been helpful. It could be argued that teacher training to the depth I needed (to teach a whole semester long course) isn’t generally within the scope of what MLIS programs are trying to teach, but if librarians are expected to insert themselves into those dynamics within another person’s classroom I don’t see the harm.

I doubt I could have predicted some of the emotional challenges I encountered (and am afraid if I did I might have balked from teaching the course). I would have really benefited from having a trusted mentor who was a course instructor at the same institution or a similar institution. I had great library colleagues at UIS to run issues by, but no one whose primary responsibility was course instruction.

I’m glad you enjoyed the post! The five minute introduction came from a quick review of the 4th chapter on evaluating information in the textbook we used, 100% Information Literacy Success. There were various activities throughout the semester: students working in pairs to evaluate websites, discussions of the differences in intended audiences of popular vs. scholarly articles on the same topic, the students’ presentations included an element of evaluation they were graded on, etc. I tried to incorporate evaluation into the content we were covering.